Can Only Play Once Per Install

[67510ff862289Croy44]

Greets,

After a couple days of reading these forums and tweaking I finally got SS2 working on my PC.. Sorta..

I have followed everything I can find on these forums. I have tried adding in mods and playing vanilla, and playing vanialla but "mod ready" without mods. I have used the SS Tool many many times. I also have 2 original CDs for the game. I have the one I bought in 1999 and a second one bought as a "classic" which was stored in shrink-wrap from 2002 till last night when I opened it to try and see if there was a difference.

My Specs:
Win XP Home Sp2
Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHZ
eGeforce 8800 GT AKIMBO 1GB (169 and then 175 driver)
Sound Blaster Live 24 bit
500 GB SATA HDD

If I use the official patch or the SS Tool then I can load the game, see the videos, but the game crashes when it finishes "Accessing." Sometimes I can see the desktop after it crashes and sometimes it is a black screen. I never get an error. It just hangs.

The only way I can get the game to load is:
Reinstall from scratch (from either CD)
Replace the shock2.exe with the 2k/XP fixed one
Make sure compatiability is off.

The game will then get past accessing and be playable. I can save the game and load the game here as well. If I go to options I crash. I left the resolution at default (though I have changed it to different settings (and my desktop to match) with the same results).

Now.. If I quit the game it will not start again. I get an error wth shock2.exe and the program closes down before any videos load. No matter what it will not run again until I uninstall it and reinstall it using the 3 steps above. I can then play until I need to exit the game... At which point it will not load again.

The funny thing is, I got the demo and it runs perfectly without any configuration changes or problems. It is not even set to compatiabity mode. Seems like EA found their own workaround.

If I use any fix in the SS Tool or patch the game it will not go past "accessing." Only a vanilla copy from CD with the XP fixed EXE works at all.

I can not downgrade my driver to 163 as 8800 GT cards were not supported till 169.

Any suggestions?

-Croy

[67510ff8624d6miracle.flame]

I'm not sure if it counts but you didn't mention using Timeslip's ddfix. Did you? Related thread

[67510ff862616leaf]

This is just a theory, but try renaming LGVID.AX to something else. Cutscenes may be causing a problem. Renaming this file will disable all cutscenes.

[67510ff8627bdCroy]

Thank you for the responses. I did do the ddfix. That was a nice file. I have the latest version where you do not need to rename the .exe.

I also tried renaming the LGVID.AX file. It makes my videos stop playing. I found that if I registered it and installed the IV5 codecs I can run with the LGVID.AX file as normal.

Thank you for the suggestions.

I also tried copying files from the demo install into the shock2 folder and seeing if it worked. Eventually it sops working with enough demo files copied over.

The demo runs perfectly which is the weird thing.. No compatiability.

On a side note I left my desktop resoultion at 1600X1050 and 32 bit color (changing it down to 800X600 with 16 bit does not help) and my drive is NTFS and not FAT32.

I welcome any more suggestions.

-Croy

[67510ff862944Kolya]

You should not use compatibility settings on the game either. It doesn't help and can actually keep the game from running. The DDFix is necessary for your graphics card. Also make sure the line "safe_texture_manager" is present in the file cam.cfg.